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Why didn't they just stop the car in Death Proof???

posted 8 years ago by RynoII
5 replies | jump to latest

Basically the woman is riding on the hood of the car, when Mike comes to ram the car and attack them. But the women decide to keep speeding up, which puts them and their friend on the hood in more danger.

Wouldn't it be a lot more logical to stop the car, which would cause Mike to blow past them and get far away, and then get their friend back into the car, and then drive away after? A lot of people say this is one of the best car chases ever, but the thing that ruins the action, is the characters being so stupid.

Even after they manage to ram Mike and get him off the road and far away, do the women stop the car then and let their friend in, since they now have even more time to do that? No, they keep on driving fast, with her on the hood. Unbelievable!

Unless I am wrong?

[–] teamramrob 8 years ago

The point of the scene was to exploit Zoe Bell as a stuntwoman.

There was a nice interview with Tarantino about his intentions with the making of Death Proof (If i find it I'll post it here). In the interview Tarantino discusses that he was trying to make the exploitation movie that he would have made before Reservoir Dogs, introducing a less skillful Tarantino. He talks about how he intentionally gives the first set of girls amateurish dialogue and slowly improves the quality of their conversations as the movie goes on, and I think this is the first clue into why the car chase is set up the way it is. If you rewatch the chase, there is a scene where Stuntman Mike's car swerves out of control while going off the road into the dirt. At this point the camera is looking for and trying to track Mike's car in an amateurish way giving it that B-movie feel.

[–] RynoII 8 years ago

Well maybe... I like how the B movie feel is done in camera work, such as the camera looking for where the car is. But this coming from Tarantino, I was expecting more of a B-movie, with an A-screenplay.

[–] teamramrob 8 years ago

The second group of women definitely had that A-dialogue. It was like bubble gum--something you can chew on.

[–] teamramrob 8 years ago

The second group of women definitely had that A-dialogue. It was like bubble gum, something you can chew on.

[–] ScottyNation (1) 2 years ago

You are not wrong, you are 100% correct. I am a huge fan of QT, but the car chase scene with Zoe on the hood was just plain stupid. I understand that QT wanted to have a crazy scene with Zoe doing all these stunts on the hood of the car, but he needed to come up with a better premise on how/why they need to go so fast with her on the hood almost falling off.. Any driver would have just stopped the car as soon as they were rear-ended. I don't mind suspending disbelief and whatnot for a movie, but that scene was over the top. That's just one of the many reasons why Death Proof is Tarantino's worst movie.